"Heh? Why the hell? Is there anybody out there who doesn't know what kind of a dick he is?" So he did mean the Patriarch.

Anna Mozilla was psychic. Principate Bronte Doneto did not opt to find room for Pella in his household.

"Why did you see Doneto before you came to family?" Principate Delari asked Hecht. He asked similarly uncomfortable questions often. "I was disappointed, Piper."

"I went there first because Doneto is the man who can deflect the Holy Father's displeasure from Ghort and me. He won't gain any advantage from what I reported. Nor did Pinkus give him everything that he could have."

"I'm pleased to hear that."

"He could get me fired if he wanted. Who'd stand up for me? If he wanted Pinkus's job, though, three of the Five Families would get in the way as a matter of political principle."

"So. What will you share with me that you didn't let Doneto have?"

Hecht glanced around. "Where's Armand? I don't like telling you things in front of him. He makes me uncomfortable."

That irked the old man. "He's a boy, Piper. He cares about nothing but clothing and baubles."

"Even so, despite all, he makes me uncomfortable. I don't apologize for that." He would not tell the old man that his toy was an agent for both the Grail Emperor and Gordimer the Lion.

Delari did something that seemed trivial, said, "Go ahead. No one will hear what you say but me. If you like, I can add a veil to make it impossible for someone to read your lips."

"That won't be necessary." Hecht told his guardian angel the whole story. Including his suspicions about Sonsa.

The old man said, "That bothers me. The Brotherhood giving up their inflexible rectitude. That's the problem with the Special Office. They want to conquer the darkness by drowning it with darkness."

Hecht did not raise the question of the elderly Principate's own devotion to powers drawn from the Night.

Delari went on. "I'm equally troubled by the monster on the West Road. Might it be a bogon? Possibly the one you ran into crossing the Ownvidian Knot?"

"I never was close enough to get a feel for it. Principate Doneto would be the man to ask. He handled the thing in the Knot."

Principate Delari shrugged. "I doubt he'd cooperate. His cousin won't let him."

When Hecht did not comment, Delari added, "Sublime really believes most people are cattle put on earth to enrich the Church. And the rest of us are here to help make Honario Benedocto's dreams and schemes come to pass."

Then he said, "He's decided not to punish Duke fon Dreasser. Not right now. You haring off gave time for cooler heads to prevail. So to speak."

"Oh?"

"There was time for word of what happened in the Connec to get here. The Collegium was outraged. Sublime did that without consulting anyone. He fell into a deep despair. He was counting on Backe and the Bishop of Strang to generate a flood of money. Instead, he's worse off than ever. His debtors are clamoring to be paid. No one will loan him another copper. Not just because of his poor prospects but because of the bad judgment he's shown in his efforts to acquire funds."

"They'd have given him an old-fashioned triumph if his scheme had worked," Hecht opined. His regard for those who facilitated the Patriarch's lunacies was low. There was no morality among them at all.

"Probably. Success erases all moral failure and defects. However… We can expect a period of uproar and outrage when the news gets around. Maybe a riot or two. Then life will go on as it always does. You may have noticed that assumption of the Patriarchal throne endows its occupant with considerable insulation."

"I have noticed." Hecht chuckled. "The way donning the Imperial vestments insulated the old emperors from everyone but their own families and palace guards."

Delari raised an eyebrow.

"No. I'm not floating a suggestion."

"Good. I'm much more interested in that powerful Instrumentality near Alicea. And in what may be afoot in Sonsa. The Sonsans have done well, concealing their troubles from the rest of us. Give them credit for clever."

Hecht did. The raging capitalists of the Firaldian and Direcian mercantile republics ran rings around more traditional states. They were possessed of an amazing energy.

How much more dangerous might they be were they not ones to waste resources fighting each other over markets and themselves for family supremacy inside the several republics?

Delari said, "An aside. Your man Consent's conversion. Is it heartfelt? Or a ploy?"

"I don't think it's a ploy the way we Chaldareans would see it. Deves don't suffer that much, here. Has he discovered the verities in the preachings of Aaron and the Founders? Maybe. But I think the passion driving him is his own need to escape the expectations of the Deve Elders. He just wants to be Titus Consent, one part in a machine, peerless at what he does, well rewarded for it – then able to go home to his family at night."

"You're friends?"

"No. But we're around each other a lot. We talk about life. I talk with everyone. Sometimes I learn something. From him. From you. Or even from Pinkus Ghort."

"I imagine Colonel Ghort is a fountain of low information and possibly a plebeian sort of wisdom."

"He's a good man to have at your back."

If Delari harbored reservations he did not relate them. "The girl's name. What was it?"

"Vali Dumaine."

"There's no important family in Firaldia with that name."

"There is one in Arnhand. Minor nobility. The current count is in bad odor with Anne of Menand. He wouldn't make the beast with two backs when she offered the opportunity."

"That wouldn't make sense. What would the Brotherhood hope to gain from a minor Arnhander?"

"Consider this, too. The girl doesn't talk but she understands Firaldian perfectly. Vulgar and High, both. At her age I doubt she would if she'd been kidnapped from north and west of Salpeno."

"I'll make inquiries. When you're Principate Muniero Delari of the Collegium you can ask for any damned thing you want. You get it without much question."

"Naturally."

"Again, I'm especially intrigued by that monster up there. Except for the thing you ran into crossing the Ownvidian Knot, there hasn't been anything like that seen since the dawn of history. Not since Era Itutmu came over from Dreanger with his elephants and armies and crew of tame monsters."

The Kaif of al-Minphet and those who recognized him as the Living Voice of the Founding Family discouraged interest in anything that happened before the Revelations and Conquest. Despite his decades in Dreanger Piper Hecht knew little about the priest-king general who tormented and terrified the young Old Brothen Empire for a generation. Pramans rejected the glories of their pagan ancestors.

"I won't speculate. That's your area of expertise."

"So it is. Once more about the villain from Viscesment, Rudenes Schneidel."

Hecht told it. "I think Schneidel is another enigma dragged up out of the shadows, like Starkden and Masant al-Seyhan when Calzir went crazy."

Delari nodded. "An interesting notion. Although I have heard of Schneidel. As a rumor out of the High Athaphile, and that only recently."

"I don't know that geography."

"The High Athaphile is the central mountain range on Artecipea, the big island in the Mother Sea between Firaldia and Direcia, southeast of the Connec. It's claimed by the Patriarchy, the Empire, and Peter of Navaya by his recognition of Calzir's claim, since much of Calzir passed to him by right of conquest. Peter and his Plataduran allies have made inroads. Neither we nor the Emperor can do anything but bark. We've got more immediate problems."

Hecht knew little about the islands of the western half of the Mother Sea. Vaguely, he recalled having seen Artecipea on a map. "Is that a Praman realm, then?"